Crazy but Sweet, Sweet but Crazy

3: lights and action

The swarms of smiling faces that used to visit our house back when Horan Holdings was still considered the most respectable and powerful press company in the industry. All those faces disappeared the moment the scandal broke.

I'd fancied myself a decent judge of character, that I could differentiate the fake friends from the genuine ones, the house visits with ulterior motives and those of people who truly viewed our family as friends.

How arrogant I had been.

Among the numerous whom I'd considered to be my friend, to be my father's friend who would stick with us through thick and thin, only a single person remained.

Bianca.

Everyone else took off the masks they'd been wearing and simply walked away like they hadn't been by our side all along.

It'd been a masquerade ball, and only I hadn't been aware.

"Coffee?" Elliot asked, smiling, gesturing to a plastic cup of ice coffee.

"No thank you," I said stiffly. "You can cut the act. I know what you want to hear from me."

His smile changed into one of politeness to amusement. He took the lid off the plastic cup, and took a sip, looking at me over the rim.

"What do you mean?"

"I didn't see you that night, in the parking lot." I tapped my head, raising an eyebrow. "Forgotten. I made a promise- to not tell anyone- and I'm intending to keep it."

Elliot Lockwood put down the cup of coffee.

Then, with that angelic, gentle smile I'd never seen leave his face for the past few minutes, he pulled out a photo from his pocket, and handed it over to me, like he would a gift.

The air in the car seemed to grow heavier, thicker.

I stared at the photo, looked at it again an again, as if trying to read between the lines of a difficult book.

It was the photo of Michael Horan, my dad, in a casino.

His mouth open in a laughter- I knew how it would sound like- surrounded by other men, under dim purple lights, a half-filled glass of wine by his side.

The photo was dated to just a week ago.

"You don't have to keep a promise," he said, his voice with such casualness and friendliness that I could've almost been mistaken about the words that followed.

"You just have to remember how it was for your family the year of the scandal. How it felt to be buried alive by the public and the press."

His words were meant to hurt, rile me up- or scare me.

But maybe because his intention was so clear, I only grew more determined. To fight. "...You're making me more curious. About what you're trying so hard to hide."

"I'm not hiding anything." I could've almost been deceived by the smile of his lips.

The smile that never reached his eyes. "I'm just trying to seduce you. You just have to fall for it."

"With threats?" I smiled. This boy put Jekyll and Hyde to shame. "Should I be honoured, to be selected by a Lockwood?"

He'd gotten closer, before I knew it. His breath tickled my ear, and his voice, low and smooth, sent shivers down my arms.

"Feeling honoured might be a stretch... let's just go for enjoying."

Elliot drew back slowly. "It's very simple. One. You don't tell anybody about what you saw in the park that night.